


Test Day

by Neanderthal



Category: Xena: Warrior Princess
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 03:40:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29325630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neanderthal/pseuds/Neanderthal
Summary: In Season 1 Episode 15, Gabrielle mentions something called "test day". It made me wonder how "test day" got started, and how often exactly Xena pulls dumb pranks on Gabrielle.
Relationships: Gabrielle/Xena
Comments: 8
Kudos: 29





	Test Day

**Author's Note:**

> My friend recently introduced me to this show, and I'm watching it for the very first time. It's VERY good. But I'm trying to avoid spoilers, so that means I can't read any fanfiction of it. So to cope, I wrote my own fanfiction to read over and over. Hope you enjoy.

The first time it happened, Gabrielle thought she ought to be angry about it.

She had been sleeping quite comfortably in her bedroll. Maybe a bit cold, but nothing too unpleasant for what sleeping outdoors was all about. Then when she shifted a bit under the blanket, she felt the surface beneath her was a bit too stiff to be dirt. She reached her arm out from the blanket to feel what was under her, and her fingers met the bark of a tree.

In alarm, she shot her head up, and just as she was making sense of the fact that she was up in the branches of a tree, she heard a chuckling. She looked up at Xena, sitting casually up in the higher branches, and looking down at her.

"Morning, Gabrielle" she said, in that smug, self-satisfied way.

What was going on? How had she carried her up here without her noticing? And why? Had she said something or done something to deserve such treatment? She couldn't ask every question at once, so she started with, "What?"

Xena crossed her arms, as though this was going to become serious. But she was still smiling. "You're being hunted by a war chief. His troops are searching the area. Soon they will find this tree, and you have mere seconds to react before they find you. What do you do?"

Alarmed and confused, Gabrielle looked down at the ground below. And oh. She was high up. This was a tall tree.

"What if I rolled over in my sleep?!" she whined, crawling out of the bedroll and crawling carefully toward the trunk of the tree to wrap her arms around it for balance.

"What do you do?" Xena repeated, without answering.

Gabrielle looked down again. Ignoring the sinking feeling in her gut, she searched for the supposed troops. But there was no sign of any. Not a soul out there for as far as she could see. Which was pretty far, at this height.

"I don't see them" she said, still scanning the horizon. She looked up at Xena when she didn't respond, and the warrior simply pointed directly down. Gabrielle followed her gaze, but still couldn’t see a single person. Just a bunch of watermelons mysteriously scattered on the ground. "Where did those come from?"

"Better hurry" Xena said, shaking her head. "You're being timed."

In her rattled state, Gabrielle finally caught on.

"Xena… come on," Gabrielle pleaded "I'm too tired for this."

Xena uncrossed her arms and straightened her mouth into a hard, serious line. "Gabrielle," she said, "in the heat of battle, you won't have time to wake up fully, or to plan ahead. You need to be ready for anything."

Well, that was true. Gabrielle didn't have a lot of faith in her own potential in the event of an ambush. But so what? That's why she had Xena. She always got them out of dangerous situations.

"Alright, but do we need to do this _now_?"

Xena smiled again. "No, I suppose not" she shrugged, grabbing a branch and swinging herself down to the ground. "If you like, you may begin whenever you're ready."

Gabrielle just stared down at her. "Aren't you going to help me down?"

"Nope."

No, of course not. Gabrielle groaned, and smacked her head against the trunk of the tree in frustration.

Well, if she had to get herself down anyway, she might as well play along.

After a while of trying to move from branch to branch in as careful a way as possible, Xena shook her head and said something about how the soldiers had arrows, and would shoot her if she didn't get moving.

In the end, Gabrielle stumbled off the last branch and fell on top of one of the watermelons. She was pretty sure she would be bruised in a few days.

But after she hit the ground, Xena took some pity on her and stepped over toward her. Gabrielle was still a bit irritated with her, but allowed Xena to help her up, and brush off the dirt and watermelon bits.

"Not bad" Xena began. "You took out one of them, at least."

Gabrielle looked down at the splattered remains of the fruit, then back at Xena. "Well, maybe that was the leader, and the rest of them retreated." She hoped Xena felt generous enough not to criticize her too much. After all, she had tried her best. Considering how unpleasant her wake-up had bee, she thought she did about as well as could be expected.

She flinched when she put a hand on her outer thigh and felt her body stinging with pain where she'd landed.

Xena smiled in that sly way. "Want me to kiss it better?"

Gabrielle quickly turned away. Of course she wasn't being serious. She was just teasing her for being so much less tough than she was. Teasing her for wanting tenderness. She was already hurt, Gabrielle wished Xena wouldn't humiliate her so much on top of it all.

"I'm fine" Gabrielle said curtly, trying to get across her annoyance more than her pain. "Just don't do this again, alright?"

"Alright, whatever you say." She sounded sincere. Gabrielle thought that despite how amused she was by her fumbling she would keep her word.

So Gabrielle was even more angry when several days later, it happened again.

She woke up to the panic of being surrounded by and submerged in water. Her mind quickly raced to awareness, and her instincts kicked in as she scrambled toward the surface.

She barely had time to catch her breath before Xena started talking.

"You're being chased by archers on both sides of the shore" she said, walking along the grassy riverside to keep up with the current that was pulling Gabrielle along. She didn't need to move too fast. It was a fairly weak current. "What do you do?"

"Xena!" she yelled, angrily smacking her hands against the water as she drifted along. "You promised you wouldn't do this again!"

"You aren't up a tree" she pointed out flatly. "Now focus, you're being shot at."

Gabrielle looked down the stretch of river that lay before her. "There isn't a waterfall at the end, is there?"

"I don't know, is there?" Xena shrugged nonchalantly.

"Xena!" she yelled, panicking.

"No, there isn't. You're fine" Xena shook her head. "But you should take this seriously."

"Yeah, well, _you_ should-" Gabrielle stopped mid-sentence when she saw the root of a nearby tree, which was extended out of the ground, half obscured beneath the water. It was thick. Definitely enough to pull herself up by.

Gabrielle dove down under the water, and grabbed it. She used the momentum of the current to swing herself up on shore, using the root to anchor herself. When she stood on solid ground, her clothes were soaking wet, and her hair clung to her neck.

But despite the discomfort, and the anger at Xena for pulling this scheme, she felt proud of herself for getting out of the river on her own so quickly.

Xena even looked impressed. Or surprised. Or something. She was difficult to read, but her mouth was slightly open as she looked Gabrielle up and down.

"Very nice…" she said finally in appreciation. Then the look became more serious. "But you still get shot at, because the archers were waiting for you, and you didn't stop them."

Gabrielle scoffed. "Well, how in Gaia's name did you expect me to deal with imaginary archers?"

Xena shrugged. "You could've hidden underwater and waited for them to lose your trail. Or you could've let the river carry you until they couldn't keep up. Or you could've… caused a distraction. You're good at those."

"A distraction?" she repeated in disbelief, running her hands through her soaked hair, and wringing the water out of it. "How?"

Xena quirked her eyebrows in some knowing way. "Oh, I don't know. With your feminine charms, or something."

Gabrielle doubted that Xena would have allowed that to work.

Xena was in total control of how these little tests worked. She was the one conjuring up these scenarios that Gabrielle was forced to play out. And that meant that Xena decided ultimately what was valid and what was not. Just like Gabrielle didn't think she could say 'I conjure lightning from my hand and smite the bad guys', she didn't think Xena would just stand by and watch while she pretended to seduce imaginary men.

Xena would probably just chide her for not taking the test seriously.

Later on, they returned to camp, where Gabrielle dried herself off with a blanket. Sitting out under the sun helped the process along nicely. Xena took Argo on a quick excursion down the river to chase down Gabrielle's sopping wet bedroll. But to her credit, she came back with it before it had reached the ocean.

Gabrielle was still mad at her though. She did not say anything, not even 'thank you' when she gave it back.

But naturally, Xena picked up on her spitefulness, and did not ignore it.

"Gabrielle, do you want to use your words?" she asked, talking in that tone that said 'I know you want to talk, so _I'll_ be the adult in this situation'.

"I'm just sick of you doing this!" she snapped. "And I know you said it's just to train me to be prepared for anything, but I get the feeling you're just laughing at me every time. And It makes me mad!"

Xena wasn't snide or teasing with her reply. She frowned, and took a few seconds to really consider Gabrielle's words. After some seconds, and a nod, she spoke. "Okay. I can understand that." She knelt down in front of Gabrielle, so they would be at eye level. "But I'm not laughing at you. Gabrielle, you've come so far since we first met. Every day you get stronger. But I still worry about you sometimes. And I don't want to have to worry so much about you when I'm not around. I care about you."

It was still pretty rare for Xena to be so ardent and honest. She wasn't a very sappy sort of woman, and it was not lost on Gabrielle just how much courage it must have taken her to say something like that.

But she probably didn’t mean it in the way Gabrielle wished she did.

"But…" Xena went on, rising to her feet. "If you really want me to stop surprising you with these tests, I will."

Gabrielle hesitated.

Xena hadn't been doing these tests just to mess with her. Maybe a little. But mostly, she'd been doing it for her own peace of mind. So that while Xena was gallivanting off, fighting villains, and saving peasants, she wouldn't have to worry about Gabrielle being in danger. Xena wanted to know that Gabrielle would be safe.

That wasn't so bad. That was worth falling out of trees and getting a bit wet for.

"Well… maybe just stop waking me up that way" she said. "If you want to surprise me with a test, just wait until I'm already awake."

Xena smiled. "Alright. I can do that."

And true to her word, the third time it happened, Gabrielle was already awake.

They hadn't been to a town for a few days, and Gabrielle was on foraging duty. She managed to find a couple of apples that were ripe enough for eating, but not much more substantial than that. It was hard to find good food to eat when they were out in the wilderness. And anything edible, no matter how scarce, was important.

So, she was understandably a bit annoyed when she stepped in a snare, and was pulled off her feet, dropping the apples.

She wasn't hurt when she landed. The grass was soft, and her backside had taken the brunt of the landing. But she was a bit frightened. Her immediate thought was that this was a trap some bandit had left. But her fears were quickly assuaged when instead of a bandit thug, she saw Xena the warrior princess stepping out of the bushes toward her, and smirking. Most people would probably have preferred a bandit. Not her, though.

But she was still a bit annoyed.

"We were supposed to eat those later" Gabrielle said, pointing her chin over at the apples which were intact, but dirty and a bit battered now. She sat up, but left the rope around her ankles while she let Xena explain what kind of danger she was meant to pretend to be in.

Xena didn't bother with banter. "Thieves have you captured. They're going to take you back to their camp and hold you for ransom. What do you do?"

"Well, I guess I should start by…" Gabrielle reached over to untie herself. But Xena bent down and smacked her hands away. "Ouch! What?"

"You really think they'll just stand around and wait for you to escape?" she said, tilting her head slightly to punctuate her cynicism. "No. You can do better than that."

Gabrielle huffed. Then she held out her hands, as if holding an invisible staff. "Okay, fine. Then I'll fight them off, and _then_ escape."

"Fight them with what?" Xena said, shaking her head. "You don't have your staff."

"Well, yeah" Gabrielle said with a scoff "but there also aren’t really a band of thieves surrounding me."

"No" Xena said. "You didn't bring it with you to gather apples, so you don't get to have it now."

This sort of insistence seemed a bit needlessly controlling. Gabrielle thought she was being pretty compliant already, but Xena was making this much more frustrating than it needed to be.

"Ugh, can't you just give me a little bit of leeway here?" Gabrielle said, folding her arms together and glaring up at Xena.

"I'm not here" Xena reminded her. She leaned back against a tree beside her, and gestured vaguely toward the empty space beside her. "You'll have to ask the thieves."

So be it.

But Gabrielle refused to take this seriously if she wasn't even allowed to have her weapon.

Gabrielle followed her gaze toward nothing. "Are these guys the bloodthirsty type? Or do they seem like they're more in it for the money?"

Xena took a moment to think. "Money type" she decided. "But they'll rough you up if you aren't careful."

Gabrielle looked back up at nothing again, imagining some rough looking scarred up man standing there. She cupped her hands together plaintively. "Oh, please, mister highwayman!" Gabrielle said, "I don't even have anything worth stealing! You should go that way, there's this frail helpless woman named Xena out there, and she has a ton of valuables!"

Xena raised her brow. "Really?"

Gabrielle shrugged. "Well, if this was for real, you'd be much better at dealing with them than me."

"Well, it doesn't work. They aren't going to let you go just to chase after some other victim. And they're getting impatient."

Gabrielle rolled her eyes at Xena and groaned. "Oh come on! You don't get to just choose what works and what doesn’t! Come on, let's get this over with so I can eat something!"

"Gabrielle" Xena said sternly, with her eyes narrowed in a serious sort of way. "Stop being a child."

Gabrielle turned her mouth down into a pout, and clenched her fists at her side.

It was so aggravating how Xena was calling _her_ a child, while she was the one inventing stupid tests. And even though she had assured her that she wasn't laughing at her, it still felt pretty embarrassing. There was only so much of this nonsense she felt she could put up with in one day.

How was she even supposed to do this anyway?

She remembered the advice Xena had given her last time, after she got out of the river. A spark of mischief brought her mouth to a grin.

If that's how this had to be, then fine. She could be just as insubordinate as Xena could be bossy.

And maybe she could get Xena to feel just as uncomfortable in this situation as she did. Probably not. Nothing ever seemed to make her uncomfortable. But a little rebellious thrill shot through her at the possibility of it.

"Stop being a child?" she said. "Okay, fine." She looked away from Xena, and at the empty space beside her.

Gabrielle leaned back on one of her arms, and held the other defensively up against her breast. She turned her hips, so that her legs rested one atop the other, but kept her chest upright. She slowly pulled one leg up across the other, letting her skirt drag up with it. She lowered her head, so that she was peeking up from under her eyelashes.

She was trying to keep her focus on the imaginary thief, and not on Xena. But she could see the warrior princess shift ever so slightly. It bolstered her confidence.

"Oh, mister big strong thief, _please_ don't hurt me!" Gabrielle said breathlessly. "There must be _something_ I can do in exchange for my freedom! Oh, _please_!"

She felt pretty satisfied with herself when she saw Xena draw in a sharp breath. But Xena was not meeting her gaze. Xena's eyes were tracing Gabrielle's body, zigzagging down from her chest, to her abdomen, her waist…

And then they settled for some few seconds on Gabrielle's exposed thigh, where her skirt was drawn up.

Xena tugged her lower lip into her mouth for the briefest second. And her chest heaved with a deep, focused breath. Oh, she definitely looked rattled.

Gabrielle's heart soared with victory.

But then the next moment, it was over.

"Nope" Xena said, closing her eyes for just a bit longer than a blink, and then pushing herself away from the tree. She stepped toward Gabrielle, with a certain haste. For a flicker of a moment, Gabrielle felt that she might grab her. But she didn't

She bent over by her feet, and took out her sword to cut the rope.

Gabrielle looked up at her in confusion, her 'damsel in distress' façade having melted away.

Xena leaned in closer to her, and Gabrielle felt an intensity radiating off of her that almost made her think she ought to back away.

"Don't…" Xena said, her voice cutting low and deep. "Don't you _ever_ try that again."

Gods. Her whole body shuddered.

Gabrielle forced a laugh. Hoping in vain it would ease the tension she felt all through her body.

"Why?" she asked innocently. "Don't tell me _that_ wouldn't work either."

Xena didn't respond. But she paused, like she was considering responding. In the end, she just backed away, and stood upright, turning her back to Gabrielle. She didn’t even offer her hand to Gabrielle to help her to her feet. It was like Xena was afraid of touching her, or something.

It was just as well. Gabrielle sort of felt like she might fall apart completely if she did.

She awkwardly got to her feet, and brushed the dirt off her clothes, and smoothed her skirt back out. When her hand brushed over the part of her thigh that Xena had been looking at when she licked her lip, she flinched just a bit. It hurt.

She glanced down at it for a moment. It was the spot where she'd landed on that watermelon a few days ago. It was a bruise now.

_'Want me to kiss it better?'_ Xena had said before.

Gabrielle could feel her face flushing. But she scarcely had any time to recover before an apple was thrust toward her, held in Xena's open palm. It looked like it had been cleaned off. It was all shiny like brand new.

"Here. You said you wanted to eat" she said briskly. The moment Gabrielle took it from her Xena stepped away, turning her back to her again. Xena had the other apple in her hand already, and she took a big loud bite out of it as she walked away. "We should get moving again soon. Meet me back at camp when you're ready."

Then she was gone.

Gabrielle was a bit grateful for the alone time she would need to compose herself. But Xena's abrupt departure felt a bit too cold. Like she was intentionally putting distance between them both. Like she was upset.

Gabrielle didn't understand herself.

She had won. She had broken Xena's stalwart determination, and gotten out of the silly test. And yet, it didn't feel so much like a victory now.

She almost didn't want to go back to camp, for fear that she would find Xena in the same strange evasive mood. She didn't like it. She wanted the Xena who was snarky, and never avoided anything, no matter how uncomfortable.

Maybe she should apologize.

When she returned to camp, Xena was there, just as she said she would be. She had cleared their bedrolls, and scattered the rocks and half-burnt twigs left from the fire they had made last night. Everything was packed up, ready to leave.

"Hey" Gabrielle greeted as she stepped forward, hands nervously held behind her back. Hoping desperately that the awkwardness would be over.

"Hey" Xena repeated without looking at her. Her tone seemed as even and unaffected as ever. But Gabrielle wasn't buying it. Xena was checking the girth around Argo. Probably out of the want for something to do more so than out of necessity.

Gabrielle hesitated. Bringing it up might just make things worse. But she had to say _something_.

After a long silent pause, Gabrielle spoke. "So… was that my last test, then?"

She hadn't exactly looked forward to them before. But suddenly she felt like it would be a loss for them to stop.

"If that's what you want, yes" Xena said, still not looking at her.

Gabrielle pursed her lips. "Xena… I'm sorry. I know I wasn't taking it seriously. And yeah, I was kind of trying to get under your skin on purpose. But… I didn't think you'd get so upset with me. I'm sorry."

Xena stopped whatever she was doing with the saddle, and looked at Gabrielle then. She looked a bit confused, and then when understanding swept over her, her eyes looked just a bit hurt.

"Oh, no, Gabrielle I'm not mad at you" she said.

"You're not?"

"No, of course not. I'm used to your attitude." She paused for just a second before she decided to finish the thought. "I think you're cute when you're like that."

And just like that, the blush Gabrielle had spent so much time subduing returned.

"Oh" she said. "Well, then why did you storm off like that? It felt like you were really agitated."

"No" she said gently. "I was just… thinking about if it was real. And… Gabrielle, you're a pretty convincing actress."

"Oh, I see" she sighed. "Well, don't worry. I would never _actually do that_. I was just kind of peeved. I mean. You called me a child, and I guess it touched a nerve."

"Oh, don't worry," Xena said with a light chuckle. "I definitely don't think of you as a child."

It was more of a relief to Gabrielle to hear her say that than Xena probably even knew. She felt a pleasant relief wash over her, wiping away all the tension and anxiety from moments ago, and letting happiness shine through again.

"Come on, let's get going." Xena hopped up on Argo and urged her onward. Gabrielle quickly grabbed her staff from off the ground where she'd left it, and followed after her.

"So, are there more test days in my future, then?" Gabrielle asked.

"Gabrielle," Xena said, shaking her head, "It won't really be much of a test if you see it coming."


End file.
